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I stopped by Whole Foods this morning after dropping my kids at school (the only non-carb my daughter Vivian will eat is the overpriced organic beef jerky) and ran into an old friend, Allen, on the checkout line. As often happens these days, he and I were able to jump right in to less superficial conversation than if there were no Facebook. We decided to grab a coffee upstairs in the teak-and-bamboo Zen-consumer lounge-like atmosphere that they have in every Whole Foods. Not for nothing, I suddenly found myself craving agave nectar. Coincidence? I think not.

Allen and I were never close, but we hung out in the same young journalist circles when we were in our 20s, and had spent many a Tuesday night putting away cheap pitchers at this nasty-ass old man bar in midtown, the kind of place that leaves the Christmas tree lights up year round and serves screaming orange buffalo wings, that no longer exists. It seemed like the newspaper reporteresque thing to do. Ye Olde Tripple in, it was called, and it was right near Studio 54, which also no longer exists.

It wasn’t long before we agreed that we no longer existed either, at least not in the same iteration. (more…)

My mom and my girls two years ago

One day, your mom is the blankety-blank who you CANNOT BELIEVE won’t let you get your own phone line in your bedroom, or is making you A TOTAL OUTCAST by refusing to dip into your orthodontia fund to buy you Sasson Jeans (terribly expensive in 1979 when I was 12 and so desperately wanted them), or ARBITRARILY PREVENTS you from going out to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight, even though your very best friend in the entire universe, Julie, plays Magenta in the floor show and her mom TOTALLY LETS HER. Harumph. I still haven’t seen it. Mom is not a person, but merely a tireless obstacle to your having a life.

And then you get older and she becomes more of a person, and then, if you’re lucky (which I am), goes from a person to a pretty cool person, and then maybe grandma to your kids and someone you’d friend on Facebook because, yes, you have that little to hide. (more…)

Me at the age my daughters are now

It’s my birthday today, and here’s a secret: I’m 43.

OK, it’s not much of a secret, because I am lucky enough to have tons of friends from childhood who know my  age, my birth date is up on my Facebook profile, and what’s more, I have written here and elsewhere that I was 42 (when I was) and 41 (when I was that, until just over a year ago.) I am not above gilding the lily about many, many things, but to lie about something as irrefutable as the date you came busting out, covered with mucus and screaming bloody murder has always seemed to me rather pointless, not to mention futile.

Until now.  (more…)

This made me laugh so hard I couldn’t not share it. My friend Janine–who is, like this singer Kate Miller-Heidke, a serious bad-ass–sent it to me. It speaks to the unique position of people our age who went around dating and dumping and otherwise hurting the hell out of each other with the reasonable expectation that we would never have to interact again unless we went out of our way to.

And then along came Facebook and all of a sudden there’s the opportunity and in some cases temptation to lurk near-ish to your ex’s life, peering in at what might have been had one or the other of you not been a total asshole. As Formerlies, we’ve lived long enough to have at least one if not 7 or 33 former partners we would be shocked to find a friend request from in our Facebook notifications.

I’ve been lucky that the ones who have reached out to me have been guys of whom I have fond memories, or fondness mixed with a healthy dollop of “whatever.” I’m glad to hear from them and see pictures of their cute kids and middle-aged paunch. I’m happy they’re happy or at least happy they’re as happy as they are. And I like to think they feel similarly about me.

Then again, I can think of one or two who I’d sing this song about. Enjoy.

Things are generally more complicated than they seem. That’s something you learn as a Formerly, or at some point before then, but usually after college, when things are pretty simple: War is wrong, men are dicks, sisterhood is powerful and horizontal stripes make you look fat.

Yeah, no. Almost nothing is that simple or consistently true. Hence the “It’s complicated” relationship status option on Facebook, and my slack-jawed, wide-eyed awe (more…)

This is going to be a quickie because I must get out the door, but a woman named Tracy Young, who I don’t know, just posed a comment on Facebook which I thought was spot-on.

She was responding to a call from the editor of More magazine, for which I blog, to tweet your age, thus breaking the age taboo. Basically the passage-of-time version of “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used to It.” (more…)

A colleague and I were yammering about those cringe-worthy blackmail photos your friends from grade school put up on Facebook (see one of mine, age 11ish, above). We concluded that such an awkward, gawky, face-for-radio phase of life is good for a kid to go through, because it forces you to develop skills other than acting cutesy to get what you want, and (if you’ve got a minimum of empathy) teaches you to have compassion for others, even when you’ve emerged, somewhat more swan-like, in a year or two.

(My experience as a dork taught me to have compassion for Yasmine Bleeth, with whom I went to grade school, because she never had a discernible freakish period. Right now, considering what a riot it is to post these pictures, she’s probably feeling terribly left out. Which is tragic.)

In any event, check out my body language in that picture. I am descending that staircase as if I am Miss Pre-pubescent America about to accept my tiara and my Grand Prize: a chance to go roller skating and share a strawberry shake with Shawn Cassidy (two straws!) Self-esteem, even though I was at my absolute least attractive (please take special note of my brown tinted prescription glasses, which had my initials in the lower corner of the right lens) was clearly not in short supply. I thought I was the SHIT, appearance notwithstanding.

It was only later, when I looked much better–thus the “hot” in  Formerly Hot–that my self-esteem was in the sub-basement. It wasn’t a consistently inverse relationship (i.e., It wasn’t as if, the better I looked, the worse I felt) but I felt pretty darn awful about myself for a good deal of my teens and 20s, when many people were paying lots of money to get their hair and their boobs to resemble mine.

Finally, in my 30s, I managed to look good and feel good at the same time, most of the time.

And now, of course, I feel great, just as the first signs of decrepitude are surfacing (who even knew there was a such thing as nasal labial folds until OMG there they are! And as deep as irrigation ditches). I am reasonably sure my self-esteem will continue riding high, unless I screw up mightily.

So clearly the relationship between the way you look at how good you feel about yourself–even if, like me, you’re a bit preoccupied with appearance and work in media and live in New York where people pay way to much attention to that kind of thing in general– is not clear cut.

Why, then, do we always hear about people getting “life-changing” plastic surgery or going on diets that profoundly affect their self-esteem? I certainly understand the achievement aspect of losing weight–it’s freakin’ hard–as well as getting positive feedback from others about how you look making you feel good. It’s hard not to internalize that, and why shouldn’t you? Take what you can get. But clearly looking good is not to be relied upon to boost self-esteem (just think of all the suicidal, anorexic, miserable, drug-taking models out there). And if you can’t rely on it, to keep it tucked away under your mattress to use when you are running low, what they hell good is it?

Thoughts? When in your life did you feel best about yourself–like you rocked and you could do anything–and did you look your best at the time?  Please comment below.

Photo courtesy of Diana Hollander

Like most little kids, I worshiped my grandparents. They were infinitely patient, thought I was a superior child, fulfilled my modest dreams of Dawn dolls and snow globes and let me eat peaches canned in sugary syrup and have White Rock cream soda with dinner even if I didn’t finish my meal. I lived to visit them in their one-bedroom North Miami Beach condo where we’d all wear three sweaters (electric was included in the maintenance, so they were going to use as much as they could even if their fingers snapped off). I could raid Pauline’s pink polyester pantsuit-filled closet that smelled like Irish Spring and grandpa Will would play Gin Rummy with me well past when he was bored. It was kiddie Vegas and I was on a winning streak.

I was an adult when they died, and by then had noticed that, hardly risk-takers to begin with, like many older people, they had grown much less adaptable. They liked things the way they liked them, and became anxious when their routines were disrupted. Some of this was temperamental, but I understood why it intensified with every added candle on the cake: They’d lived long enough to know what worked for them, and they didn’t relish any added challenges. When the little things, like getting in and out of your gigantic mauve aircraft carrier of a Lincoln get more difficult, you don’t want some young car-parker looking for a tip “helping out” by reprogramming your presets on the stereo. Until you find the Perry Como station again, it feels like someone has fucked with your sense of reality just a little bit. And if the Publix runs out of your favorite brand of gluten-free dinner rolls, that can knock you flat on your ass for a good half hour, and require a therapeutic rehash (or several) with your wife of 50-plus years.

Now, I’m not saying I or any of us is elderly or set in our ways to the degree that a Lincoln-driving, Florida-living, gluten-free-roll-eating, Loehmann’s-loving, Bronx-transplanted grandparent is. Not even close.

But I have to admit (and finally she gets to the point) that when Facebook decided to “upgrade” last week, I felt as if someone had come into my house, gone through my lingerie drawer, switched up my bras for the wrong cup sizes, hid the strapless ones to make me nuts, taken away the comfy go-to bras that I wear on a daily basis, and then told me they were still there somewhere, but if I wanted them I had to re-learn a whole new drawer organization system only to be rewarded with what I had and was happy with before. And then, of course, they took my bikini panties and some of my control tops, and left me only with the flashiest, new-fangled thongs, the ones I only wear when I have to. Finally, they filled the drawer with useless bits and pieces, like stray socks and clumps of dryer lint, that I will have to wade through if I am to find any of the things I really need.

Much has been written about why the redesign is sucky, so I won’t go into that here, and many people have made the apt New Coke analogy, to urge Facebook to do as Coca Cola did and go back to the old formula. Here’s hoping.

But the longer FB keeps this sub-par version up, the less likely it is that they will, which is a shame. Sometimes, new is not better, and I’m not just saying that because I’m not new anymore myself. As much as I dislike having something I really like totally revamped, I’d get used to it if it were better. I’m a Formerly. I’m not that old yet.

I hope they make it snappy. My friend Jenna put it this way: “Recently one of our beloved family cats died. A few weeks later my three-year-old said, ‘Mom, I still miss Delilah but I can hardly remember what she looks like.’ That’s how I feel about the OLD Facebook: I know I loved it, and I miss it daily, but I can’t even remember what it looks like any more.”

Kind of like Meg Ryan’s face. Yes, Facebook is free, and yes, it may still be OK. But can I have my undies back, please? It’s not as if they were granny panties. And if they were, well, so what? Every gal has at least one pair in her drawer.

Photo by: Kaz Andrew, CC Licensed

On the very day last week that I was having a full blown shallow-breath panic attack about the economy (yet another magazine that was supposedly doing just dandy bit the big one) my friend from college, Rachel, happened to send me an email. It said that she overheard two teenage girls talking the other day.

“One told the other, ‘My mom said that the best terrorist would be a woman over 40 because no one pays attention to a woman over 40.’ Then they laughed,” Rachel wrote. “I didn’t so much. Well, at least if the economy continues like this, I know I have career options.”

I thought she made an excellent point. That’s just the kind of plucky attitude of optimism and good ol’ American bootstrap up-pulling that I think we could all learn from in these challenging times. When life gives lemons (all together now…) make lemonade! When life gives you invisibility, strap an explosive device to your chest and…!

Wait a minute…she may have been joking. Still, I decided it couldn’t hurt to think about how my skills might be applied to some other line of work, lest people stop reading altogether or for whatever reason I need to make some extra green fast. Here are some jobs Formerlies are uniquely qualified for, and ones (for the record, unlike terrorist) that I’d be willing to give a try.

1. A “before” model. They will always need “before” models for those plastic surgery ads, or how else would they sell plastic surgery, right? I hereby volunteer my slightly pleated, often puffy and somewhat jowly face to be on the “before” side of the picture, to show what a tired, sun-damaged no-longer-young person looks like without makeup. Soon so many people will be having cosmetic surgery that no one will know what’s normal, so I will be able to charge exorbitant rates for my exotic (translation: formerly normal) aging visage. I am even willing to forgo sleep and eat a lot of MSG the night before the shoot so I look especially shitty.

2. Lowest Common Denominator. Granted, I’ve been terrible at all things tech since I got my first bright yellow Toot-a-Loop radio in 1974 and couldn’t figure out how to make it twirl on my arm like a bracelet like they did in the commercials, so this is not only about being a Formerly. But as has been said a quadrillion times, those of us who are over 35 are on the whole less comfortable with the world of technology. I don’t see why people shouldn’t give us money for that! I will be in any focus group any social networking site (note to Facebook–stop fu&*^&*ng with us!!), any gizmo manufacturer, any software maker wants to sell to my demographic, and I will vouch for whether the LCD will get I and/or want to buy it. Because I am the LCD.

3. I can’t think of one more. Mattress tester? Yes, that’s it, but for sleep only (totally different kind of mattress tester than that other kind.) Maybe tomorrow. But in the meantime, if you do, please let me know.

Photo by: Wm Jas, CC Licensed

An old roommate recently posted a status update on Facebook. For those who aren’t part of the glorious timesuck that is FB, status updates are where you tell your friends how or what you’re doing. You complete the sentence Stephanie is [                                    ] or in this case Gina is [                              ], thus opening the window into your state of mind just a crack.

Well, yesterday, Gina’s update was “Gina is [wondering where her butt went.]” (more…)